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“LEARNING TO BE MAD, IN A DREAM”: THE COLD WAR AND THE BIRTH OF THE BEAT GENERATION A Thesis Submitted to the Committee on Graduate Studies in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts in the Faculty of Arts and Science TRENT UNIVERSITY Peterborough, Ontario, Canada © Copyright by Sara Gallagher 2014 English (Public Texts) M.A. Graduate Program September 2014 “Learning to Be Mad, In a Dream”: The Cold War and the Birth of the Beat Generation Sara Gallagher The Beat Generation shaped, and was shaped by, the post-WWII containment culture that arose in 1950s America. This so-called cultural containment reflected the social, political, and economic factors that were unique to the post-WWII period and are often considered concurrent to post-war McCarthyism, which promoted a national ideology of exclusionism that was foremost opposed to the threat of Communism. I propose in my thesis that containment was a major influence in the rhetoric of resistance that is found within the most prominent works of the Generation. My thesis also looks at the how Beat literature shifted from the counterculture to the mainstream and the impact that celebrity had on the Generation. When the Beats achieved literary fame their counterculture represented the forefront of the New Left and was synonymous with succeeding protest cultures of the 1960s. Keywords: Beat Generation; Cold War; McCarthyism; Containment Culture; Postmodernism; Jack Kerouac; On the Road ; Allen Ginsberg; Howl ; William S. Burroughs; Naked Lunch ; Second Wave Feminism ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS To Dr. Mike Epp, my supervisor, for your mentorship, constructive criticism, and encouragement during the entire process. I would like to express my appreciation for the brainstorming sessions that helped direct me throughout the most difficult parts of writing my thesis. I would also like to thank my second reader, Dr. Lewis MacLeod, for the valuable criticism during the second reading of my thesis. Finally, I would also like to express gratitude to my external reader, Dr. Finis Dunaway, for taking on the project at a busy time and providing challenging and constructive questions during my defence. Dr. Beth Popham: thank you for taking on the task of Chair at the last moment. Your presence was very much appreciated! To Dr. Sara Humphreys: Thank you for your guidance and mentorship for the past five years. To the various professors I have had during my time in at Trent: You have all helped me wade through the waters of confusion and self-doubt and it is much appreciated. To the Graduate Department at Trent: I am indebted to your patience and hard work that helped me to get settled into the Public Texts Program. To my fellow Public Texts grads: The beer and conversation was a necessary distraction! To the Beat Generation: You’re all mad, and I love you for it. Thanks for the inspiration. And finally, to my family and friends for putting up with my stark-raving mad writer’s block and still providing words of encouragement. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT………………………………………………………………………….ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS………………………………………………………….iii TABLE OF CONTENTS…………………………………………………………….iv-v BODY OF THESIS………………………………………………………………….1-131 BIBLIOGRAPHY…………………………………………………………………...125- 131 INTRODUCTION: THE BEST MINDS OF A GENERATION ………………..1-12 CHAPTER 1: THE BOMB, THE BEAT, AND BROTHERHOOD…………….13-44 - COMING IN FROM THE COLD: ALLEN GINSBERG’S POETICS…......22-33 - FEARING THE BOMBDEATH: GREGORY CORSO’S “BOMB”……......33-36 - LANGUAGE, VIOLENCE, AND CONFESSION…………………………..36-44 CHAPTER 2: ON THE ROAD TO THE POSTMODERN: JACK KEROUAC AND THE LITERARY FRONTIER………………………………………………45-72 - KEROUAC, COLD WAR CONTAINMENT, AND BEATNIK ‘COOL’….46-52 - ON THE ROAD: THE REBIRTH OF THE FRONTIER…………………….42-60 - THE ROAD AFTER ON THE ROAD ………………………………………..61-72 CHAPTER 3: NAKED POLITICS – A NATION OF CONSUMERS, CORRUPTION, AND CRAVINGS....………...…………………………………...73-94 - A QUEER NOTION: BURROUGHS’S PORTRAYAL OF COLD WAR ERA QUEERNESS………………………………………………………………....86- 90 - BURROUGHS’S JUNKY AND THE DRUG OF CAPITALISM…………...90-93 iv - CONCLUSION: WITHDRAWAL SYMPTOMS…………………………...93-94 CHAPTER 4: MUSES, MOTHERS, ANDREVOLUTIONARIES…………….95-124 - THE LOBA AND THE NEW WOMAN……………………………………..105- 111 - “DAMN THE PAIN; IT MUST BE WRITTEN”: BRENDA FRAZER AND THE LOST MEMOIR……………………………………………………………...111- 115 - THE SUCCESSOR: ANNE WALDMAN…………………………………...115- 123 - CONCLUSION: LIGHT IN THE ‘DARK CONTINENT’…………………..123- 124 BIBLIOGRAPHY…………………………………………………………………...125- 131 v 1 Title: “Learning to Be Mad, In a Dream”: The Cold War and the Birth of the Beat Generation Introduction : The Best Minds of a Generation “There is a universal rebellion in the air, and the power of two colossal super-states may be . failing in energy even more rapidly than we are failing in energy, and if that is so, then the destructive, the liberating, the creative nihilism of the Hip, the frantic search for potent Change may break into the open with all its violence” – Norman Mailer, Village Voice , May 9th, 1956. I was seventeen when I discovered the Beats in an old book shop on the outskirts of my town. A dog-eared collection entitled, The Collected Works of the Beat Generation , contained in it poems that had a free style and a lack of grace I never imagined could be poetry. When I read Jack Kerouac’s On the Road for the first time I was impressed by its lack of plot, its haphazardness, and its collection of characters that were reminiscent of Steinbeck’s ensemble cast of misfits, hobos, and anti-heroes in Cannery Row . However, Kerouac’s work had a lawlessness about it that I felt was significant, different and, in some ways, classic. Up until my mid-teens I had been weaned on a diet of traditional ‘classic’ British literature and the occasional American masterpiece. From Austen to Steinbeck and from Keats to Frost, when I reflect back now I realize that my literary upbringing had been a little unoriginal. I loved the authors that made perfect sense (and I still do); however, I fell in love with the Beats’ mad style. Before discovering the Beats, I had been under the impression that they were synonymous with beatniks, you know, those beatniks, the 2 caricatures with the berets and bongo drums, spouting nonsensical minimalist poetry in dank, dark nightclubs, or the pre-hipster types, who smoked and drank, and rarely bathed. As I discovered through reading the works of the Beats, the beatniks were not the Beats. Destroying this preconceived notion of the Beats gave me an odd sense of satisfaction. I felt as though I had made a discovery. At eighteen, I started my Beat collection. I bought Allen Ginsberg’s Howl, William S. Burroughs’s Naked Lunch and some of Kerouac’s lesser known works, including Desolation Angel s and Big Sur . There was a madness that connected them all – and this wasn’t a bad thing. The Beats lived in a schizophrenic era. The post-World War Two United States was a skeleton in a veil. Death and the fear of death were still looming about in the post-WWII years, yet that clichéd American Dream was advertised everywhere, from television, to cigarette ads, to the pop music being played on the radio. War had not ended in the West with the end of World War Two, V.E. Day, and the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Each victory had brought on yet another contest and fuelled tensions between former allies, the United States and the U.S.S.R. It was the nuclear age, but it was also the age of the nuclear family. Suburban sprawl began and the racial, sexual, and political boundaries were as marked as the white picket fences that separated neighbours. Grounds were gained and lost through the Cold War. The chill would lead to the next decade, the 1960s, a time of heated social revolution and political upheaval. The Beat Generation was born from the Cold War. Their counterculture formed around the idea, as poet Amiri Bakara puts it elegantly, “that society sucked” and was in dire need of a change. In his anthem, “America,” Allen Ginsberg teases his country’s 3 communist fears, while weaving in a critique of racial segregation, capitalism, and cultural conservatism. Along with “Howl,” “America” stands out as one of Ginsberg’s most politically-charged poems. It is both patriotic and anarchistic, much like the poet himself. Ginsberg’s attitude towards the United States resembled that of his predecessor, Walt Whitman. Both poets boasted their loyalty and love for their country, yet expressed dismay at the politics that segregated America and separated brother from brother, effectively splitting the country up, making it far from united. Patriotism is also expressed in Kerouac’s On the Road and Burroughs’s Naked Lunch ; however, Beat patriotism was nostalgic for an America of the past, a past that they romanticized. In his many travels, Kerouac sought to discover an America that had not been shaped by the containment culture. Burroughs delved into hallucinogenic drugs to imagine and illustrate his country and expose its hypocritical treatment of addicts. Ginsberg used radical politics to challenge his country’s aggressive military-industrial complex during the Cold War, which is best exemplified in “Howl,” where Ginsberg compares the state of America to an asylum. The fathers of the Beats – Ginsberg, Kerouac, and Burroughs – each saw the turmoil of their country as their own. The desire to understand and connect with this turmoil produced a generation of writers and artists. So, what is “Beat”? There are many ways “Beat” defines the generation. Go author, John Clellon Holmes defines the word in his New York Times article, “This is the Beat Generation”: The origins of the word 'beat' are obscure, but the meaning is only too clear to most Americans.
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